Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai: If US Moves Forward on Climate Change, Rest of World Will Follow

A new overview of research on global warming has found climate change is happening faster and on a broader scale than scientists projected in 2007. The report, which was released Thursday by the United Nations Environment program, aims to update predictions issued by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change two years ago. It concludes evidence of human-generated global warming in the last half-century is “unequivocal” and would change the planet dramatically by the end of the century unless greenhouse gas emissions drop sharply by 2050.

The new findings come in a week where the issue of global warming is at the fore. On Tuesday, world leaders gathered in New York for a one-day UN summit on climate change. And the issue will also be on the agenda today at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. The efforts all lead up to the major climate summit in Copenhagen in December to update the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Among those who spoke at the United Nations this week, was the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai. She was chosen to speak on behalf of international civil society. In her address, she called global warming the “challenge of all time.”

Well, for more on climate change, Wangari Maathai joins us today in our firehouse studio. She is a Kenyan environmentalist, lawmaker and civil society activist. In 1977, she spearheaded the struggle against state-backed deforestation in Kenya and founded the Green Belt movement, which has planted some 45 million trees in the country. She’s also been an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and democratic development, and in 2002 she was elected to the Kenyan Parliament. For her work, she was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2004. She is the author of several books, her latest is, “The Challenge For Africa.”

Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist and founder of the Green Belt Movement. She is the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Her latest book is The Challenge for Africa.

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